Despite the fact that this film offends the Lovecraft scholar in me by totally exploiting and subverting the very nature of the Great God Cthulhu in the most ridiculous of ways (nor did I care for the unnecessary political pot-shots thrown in for no good reason), I was sort of digging The Slaughter as it meandered its way along. (I'm not too proud to admit that the 3 Bs -- Blood, Breasts and Beasts -- usually work for me.) Then, almost on a dime, the film completely switched its identity from bad low-budget horror to inane zombie comedy. I don't think I've ever seen a movie completely jump sub-genres so suddenly and completely. It's as if the filmmakers and writers just suddenly stopped working and turned the final 25 minutes of the film over to a random group of 13-year-old boys who just finished watching Shaun of the Dead.

I mean I sat and watched this film essentially commit cinematic suicide before my very eyes -- the transformation is that radical and disastrous. I can only hope that director Jay Lee's next film, Zombie Strippers, fares better than this one.

The Slaughter opens with an invocation ceremony performed by a group of naked chicks, mispronouncing the Cthulhu chant straight out of Lovecraft to raise a skin-damaged crone with sagging breasts (and everything else) that they have the gall to call Cthulhu (or, as they say it, Cthul-a). (For those not acquainted with Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, let me assure you that the real Cthulhu is a gigantic, terrifying, tentacled Great Old One so ancient as to be neither good nor evil, with no sexual characteristics whatsoever.) Soon thereafter, a group of dumb, stereotypical college-age kids arrive on scene at a remote and spooky house, charged with cleaning the long-abandoned place under the watchful eyes of their uber-jerk boss and his annoying personal minion.

You've got the normal guy (Terry Erioski) with his level-headed girlfriend (Jessica Ellis, aka Jessica Custodio), a little Karl Marx wannabe named Iggy (Zak Kilberg) always going on and on about the coming proletarian revolution, a dopehead (Billy Beck) who prefers to travel in the trunks of cars, and the pairing of a flirtatious hottie (Laura Stein, aka Laura Bach) and her jealous boyfriend (Travis Wood) -- you know you can't be raising demons without some hanky-panky up in that joint.

In a clear rip-off of The Evil Dead, the kids find an ancient tome of demonic incantations down in the basement and, despite the warnings of Iggy (who suddenly turns into an expert on occult matters), go about doing the very things called for in the ritual described in the book, usually to their great misfortune. The filmmakers aren't shy about indulging in blood and gore but, unfortunately, the special effects are far too fake for you to even think about taking seriously. I haven't seen this much stop motion animation since 1933's King Kong. The acting was a little uneven throughout (and downright bad in some of the film's disastrous final 25 minutes), but it could have been much worse (especially since Jay Lee has said the cast basically worked for free). I do hope to see Laura Stein (or Bach or whatever she wants to call herself) in future films because she has the goods, as far as I'm concerned -- the camera definitely loves her, and for good reason.

Director Jay Lee will tell you The Slaughter was envisioned from the start as a horror comedy, but I'm not buying it (nor did Lions Gate, which marketed it as "an old school camp-o-rama bloodfest"). In a way, it doesn't even matter. Due to the film's inwardly schizophrenic nature, fans of either sub-genre can't help but be disappointed with one of its two identities.